


Yeah, I Read

by boleynhowards



Category: Six - Marlow/Moss
Genre: Gen, Sexist Language, anne centric angst, not reallt a happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-02
Updated: 2020-11-02
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:02:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27339133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boleynhowards/pseuds/boleynhowards
Summary: Anne struggles to toe the line between imbecility and intelligence.(or: a small dive into historical anne’s intelligence and how this is(n’t) presented in musical anne)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 73





	Yeah, I Read

**Author's Note:**

> tw: uncensored usage of words sl*t and wh*re

**_I._ **

_ She laughed loudly, looked people in the eyes, enjoyed difficult conversations, and the level of her knowledge put many men of her time to shame. _

_ \- Natalia Klimczak _

Anne stared at the courtier, arms crossed and poised in an offensive stance. Her gaze was unmoving, not leaving his eye, as if daring him to try and challenge her words. He could only maintain the stare for a few seconds before he looked elsewhere, shaking his head and excusing himself. A smirk played on her lips, proud of her small victory.

-

Carefully, Anne eyed the chessboard in front of her. She had been playing the game with Cathy for the past few hours, and it had all come down to this. Tension hung in the air, and she could feel Cathy’s brown eyes burning a gaze into her, the sixth queen tentatively trying to predict her next move even whilst Anne was still trying to make it.

Each of them only had a few pieces scattered around the board each, which was making it harder and harder to create opportunities for victory with each move that they made. Every now and then, one of the other queens would come into the kitchen, only to see the pair still hunched over the gameboard. Whoever it was would suggest just calling it a stalemate and packing up as they filled their glass with fresh water, but Anne and Cathy were too engrossed to actually listen to that.

Besides, Anne had just noticed something that could get her the win. Going through the potential move three times in her head, she triple checked herself to make sure it was going to get her the win. It was. Biting her lip to hold down a victorious smirk, Anne looked up at Cathy before she played her final move and got herself a checkmate.

The survivor was still staring down at the pieces, eyebrows furrowed and face full of thought. Anne wondered if Cathy had noticed what she had yet, or if it would come as a surprise for her when she made the move.  _ If  _ she made the move.

Sweeping her gaze back across the board, Anne took notice of a second move she could make. This one was a practical opposite to the first; if she went through with it, Cathy guaranteed to put her into checkmate and win the game on the next go. Again, her eyes flickered back to Cathy as she now pondered between the two options in front of her.

Make the winning move. Put Cathy into checkmate. End her nine time winning streak and get eternal bragging rights.

Make the losing move. Put herself into checkmate. Continue her nine time losing streak and let Cathy keep the bragging rights.

The first one seemed like the better decision, but the safety of the second choice reeled Anne in. She didn’t want to beat Cathy. She didn’t want to look too smart. She wanted to be safe.

Reaching forward, Anne picked up her piece and made her move. The losing move. Cathy’s eyes brightened up, and the sixth queen didn’t even take a moment to think before she was pushing her bishop into place.

“Checkmate!” she cheered, slamming her hands onto the table in triumph.

“Again?” Anne asked in exasperation. “God, I’m rusty at chess.”

“You could have beaten me. There was a move you could have made. I’m surprised you didn’t.”

“Oh? Where?”

Cathy quickly rearranged the pieces and demonstrated the first option Anne had, but decided against. Anne just raised her eyebrows, feigning shock.

“I guess I just didn’t see it.”

“Huh.” Cathy shrugged, beginning to pick her pieces up from the board and place them back into the box. “Well, better luck next time.”

* * *

**_II._ **

_ What really put the seal on Anne’s attractiveness was her intelligence. She was sharp and curious and interested in matters of the mind. So Anne didn’t just flirt with Henry; she also argued with him, on everything from politics to religion. And he loved it. _

_ \- Chloe Moss _

Setting the letter down on her desk, Anne thought to herself. It was from the King, and it was the third this week. He had been writing to her constantly, singing his affections and giving her praise. She took one last look at the note before pushing it to the side, fumbling around the dark for a piece of blank parchment and then dipping her quill in a fresh bottle of ink, beginning to write her reply.

-

“Cereal and then milk.”

“Milk and then cereal.”

“No!”

Kat and Anna had been arguing since the latter had woken up and proceeded to pour the cereal in before the milk. This had disgraced Kat, who was in the kitchen and watching, and the argument had built up from there. It wasn’t uncommon for these sorts of petty debates to break out in the house between any two of the queens, and they never amounted to more than an agreement to disagree, so no one else intervened.

In the front room, nose buried in a graphic novel, Anne could still hear the pair battling it out. Even with the wall between them both, even on top of the other three queens having some other discussion in the exact same room. The sound of the argument still carried through.

Not that Anne minded all that much. Living in a house with five other people guaranteed that there was always going to be some noise going on. Nobody expected peace and quiet under this roof, not anymore. Besides, Anne would have been a hypocrite if she complained. Most of the time, she was the one making a lot of the noise. It was actually quite surprising that she was the most quiet person in the house at that moment, but she was too deep into her book to put it down until she was finished.

Plenty of time slipped by as Anne read. She marvelled and admired at the illustrations of the comic as she eagerly flicked through the pages, churning through the comic in desperation to get to the ending. The argument was a dull background sound, humming in the air amongst the voices of Lina and Jane and Cathy.

Finally, with a final turn of the page, An ne reached the end of the book. Satisfied, she finally sat up from her laying position on the sofa, stretching the tension of staying still for so long from her muscles and throwing the novel onto the coffee table. In the time it had taken for her to read through it all, Cathy had vacated back upstairs to her bedroom, leaving Jane and Lina still with her. What was most prominent though, was the sound of an argument  _ still  _ going on in the kitchen.

Smiling to herself at the antics of the fourth and fifth queens, Anne grabbed her empty glass from the coffee table and stood from the sofa, making her way through to the kitchen.

“The milk splashes everywhere if you put it first!”

“Not if you’re careful!”

Somehow, they were still on the same subject. Even with Anna’s bowl long since washed up and sitting on the drying rack, they hadn’t come to a conclusion. Anne just shook her head, laughing.

“You guys are still arguing over cereal?” Anne asked, slightly baffled but mostly with a teasing tone in her voice as she approached the sink.

“Anne!” Kat exclaimed, looking between her cousin and Anna with a sly expression. “I know how we can settle this. Whoever Anne agrees with wins.”

“That’s not fair! You know she’ll just agree with you. It’s what you two do.”

“You just know that she’ll choose the better option; milk and then cereal.”

“No!” Anna shook her head, relenting. “Fine then. Anne, who’s right? Me or Kat?”

Looking between them both as she took a long drink from her fresh cup of water, Anne thought to herself. Inside of her was the temptation to sneer at Anna and back up Kat’s case; one, because she agreed and two, Anna was right - it’s just what they did. But, just as she was about to open her mouth and say this, a harsh reminder snapped at her from a long lost life.

Strong opinions weren’t good things to have. Hell, not even strong opinions. Just opinions themselves weren’t good to have. Having an opinion was dangerous. Arguing that opinion was just asking to be killed.

Closing her eyes to shake the thoughts from her head, she put her glass down on the kitchen counter and looked between the two queens in the room.

“I dunno.” She shrugged.

“Well, that didn’t help at all.” Anne chastised, but Kat just shrugged.

“Agree to disagree?” Kat offered.

At least Anne had quelled the argument.

* * *

**_III._ **

_ For a woman considered by most accounts to be unusually intelligent proclaiming a man and a king no less, with a massive ego like Henry’s unable to perform in bed was sure to give extraordinary advantage to the many wolves at court looking for any excuse to humiliate and destroy her. Apparently she could not keep her tongue when she was the subject of criticism, real or imagined, and her lashing out no matter who the offender, even the king, cost her dearly. _

_ \- Kathie Pharo _

“I am unclear, my Lady, exactly what it is you are asking of me.”

“And I am unclear, my Lord, as to why it is  _ so  _ difficult for you to comprehend.”

As soon as she had raised her voice, Anne knew she had made a mistake. Henry looked seething. And yet, Anne wouldn’t take it back. She didn’t want to.

-

Anne hadn’t been having a good day.

Nothing necessarily bad had happened, it was just one of those days where she had woken up in a bad mood and the feeling had stuck. Most of the time, the other queens knew not to come and bother her when she was in one of these moods. Anne usually went to them first if she wanted cheering up, but still valued her alone time just as much as the more introverted queens.

Unfortunately, today was the day that Jane had been out of the loop. She couldn’t really be blamed, having left the house before Anne woke up and immediately getting started on cooking as soon as she got home. Still, during dinner, she hadn’t picked up the signs to maybe not put a load on Anne’s back today. Which was why she called up the stairs for the second queen.

“Anne!”

Groaning, Anne pulled the earbuds from her ears and dropped them onto her bed, pulling herself up and sauntering out her bedroom door and to the top of her stairs. She almost hadn’t heard Jane’s call over the loud sound of her music, and, in all honesty, she wished she hadn’t. If only she could have remained undisturbed.

“What?” she asked, slouching against the bannister as she peeked down.

“It’s your turn to wash up.”

“No it isn’t.”

“Yes it is.” Jane sighed. Anne was the queen most well known for evading her chores. “It’s Thursday. That’s your day.”

All Anne did was groan, clenching her hand around the bannister and impatiently tapping her foot on the carpet.

“Well, we have a dishwasher for a reason. Just put that on or something.”

“It’s broken. You should know that, because  _ you  _ broke it.”

“It was an accident. And I don’t want to do it. Not today.”

“Please just do it. It will only take twenty minutes, and it’s your go today.”

Silence. Anne opened her mouth to send back a witty, maybe slightly enraged comment, desperately not wanting to do the work today. But, right before the words left her mouth, she quickly bit down on her lip to keep them from coming.

Her heart dropped to the bottom of her stomach and raced in her gut, but relief flooded through her at the fact that she managed to keep it all in. She was smarter than that. She knew not to be explosive or argumentative or outspoken. Lashing out in such an aggressive way was bad. They could get her for that.

Taking a deep breath, Anne nodded.

“Okay. I’ll be down in a sec.”

* * *

**_IV._ **

_ Just as I am convinced that Anne's conviction and execution were foregone conclusions, I also think that she was intelligent enough to realise this, even at that early stage. _

_ \- Claire Ridgway _

Staring out the window of her cell, Anne did everything but sleep. It was hard enough to do so anyway, what with the draughty air and the hard mattress, but her thoughts were the real thing keeping her awake. Tomorrow was her trial. In her mind, she ran through all the evidence that had been prepared, reciting her defence to herself over and over again.

It was solid. But she knew it wasn’t enough. Her fate was already sealed.

-

Being the prankster of the house certainly wasn’t a role that Anne took lightly. She was consistent in upholding the position, barely a day able to go past before she was back on her antics. This time, the back garden had become the victim.

Multicoloured paints were thrown over just about every piece of garden furniture in sight, certainly brightening the place up. Streamers of glitter and confetti had been set off everywhere, sprinkling the entire yard with little dots of sparkling colours. Nothing had been spared in the drastic (and messy) redecoration of the place; there was something  _ everywhere _ . And, in the centre of it all, stood Anne, a proud grin on her face.

“Surprise!” Anne held her arms out to her side, showing off the work she had done.

Catalina was not at all amused. Marching out of the backdoor, the first queen looked around in disbelief, eyebrow twitching with annoyance. It was unsure whether that irritation was at Anne for doing this, at herself for not noticing her doing this for the past hour, at them both. The final option seemed most likely.

“What did you do?” Lina finally asked in exasperation, turning around to face Anne, who was completely unfazed even with the harsh tone of the question.

“Just gave it a little makeover. I thought it would look nice. I mean, I think it does. But it’s kinda messy.”

“Kind of?” Lina repeated, shaking her head. “It  _ is  _ a mess! It looks like you’ve accidentally spilt craft things all over here!”

“I didn’t mean to.” Anne insisted. She did mean to. “I just thought it would look nice.” She didn’t think it would look nice.

“Why can’t you see the consequences of your actions before you make them?” Lina asked with an exasperated sigh.

Looking around at her masterpiece, Anne just shrugged.

“I dunno. Guess I’m just not smart enough to see too far ahead.”

Lina didn’t argue otherwise. In fact, she seemed to agree, even without explicitly saying so.

* * *

**_V._ **

_ Sir, your Grace’s displeasure, and my Imprisonment are Things so strange unto me, as what to Write, or what to Excuse, I am altogether ignorant. [...] _

_ Your most Loyal and ever Faithful Wife, Anne Boleyn. _

_ From my doleful Prison the Tower, this 6th of May. _

_ \- Anne Boleyn _

Anne shakily dropped the quill, wild eyes scanning over the words she had written at least a dozen times before she sealed it off and handed it to one of the prison guards. How much things had changed; she had gone from writing love letters to the king, to writing futile pleas for her life to him. Still, she had to try.

-

Standing in front of her bedroom mirror, Anne stared at her reflection. It was deep into the night, and she was fairly certain she was the only one still awake - except for Cathy, maybe. Darkness swallowed the room, the only source of light being the flashlight of Anne’s phone, which she had propped up on her bed just so she could see herself clearly.

Not having been able to sleep, Anne had laid in bed scrolling mindlessly through her social media feeds, but it did nothing to coax her eyes closed. This inability to doze off had turned into morbid curiosity and, even though she had sworn to herself she wouldn’t, she was soon neck deep into Google searches of her name, trying to find out what people thought of her.

Since she and the other five queens had started the show, she was glad to see that historical articles were beginning to shift in their ways of writing. Recounts became more factual, and debates became more fair as the queens finally got their say in what really happened. This was great; in fact, it was exactly what they all had wanted when they made the decision to tell their stories through the show. Things were finally being told as they were.

However, even with the improvements, it still wasn’t too hard for any of the queens to accidentally stumble on something that they didn’t like. And, unfortunately, that’s what Anne had done.

It was an article dissecting her intelligence. Looking into sources from when she was a girl leading all the way until her death, the writer had picked apart her unreasonably high IQ and then concluded that that was one of the leading factors of her downfall, right behind not having a son.

And yet, if that was the reason she had died, why was that not what she was known for? Why was she constantly regarded as the dumb queen? Why were most of the punchlines of her jokes in the show jibes at how stupid she was? Why did people associate her with chaos and disorder?

Well, she certainly didn’t help herself. After all, she had written her own song. She had finalised her own lines in the script. And she was responsible for acting the way she did, knowing full well that most of the time she was being immature. And yet, she never relented. It was just natural for her. At least, most of the time it was.

Watching her face in the mirror, Anne didn’t know who was staring back at her. A smart and poised Tudor queen? A tired and slightly dim millennial? The lines were too blurred at this point, and in all honesty, Anne didn’t think she fit in either of the boxes.

On one hand, she longed for what she had in her old life; for the intelligent reputation that preceded her. She longed for the spark of the debate, the joys of intelligent argument, the praise of her smarts. But, on the other hand, Anne knew she couldn’t have that again.

That was what killed her. She might have been smart, but she was  _ too  _ smart. Maybe, if she had toned it down just a little, she wouldn’t have gone through what she did. She wouldn’t have been forced on her knees in front of a crowd, publicly humiliated. She wouldn’t shoot awake at least once a week, ghosts of the past pooling in her eyes. Her story wouldn’t be mistold throughout history, she wouldn’t be known as the slut, the whore, the witch.

She would just be one of the wives.

Being intelligent was dangerous, and Anne didn’t know how much was too much. Solidifying, Anne turned away from the mirror and climbed into her bed. That was enough deep thinking. It was better to push it all away, keep a light head.

* * *

**_VI._ **

_ She seems like one of us. She used wit and willpower to get what she wanted. At first, this worked very well for Anne, but ultimately the Tudor court was a dangerous place to be for an intelligent woman. In the end, she was the victim of her own strength, as well as the victim of a pitiless king. _

_ \- Lucy Worsley _

Gravel dug into her knees, through the thin rags of her dress. The dress she would die in. She didn’t shift or make an effort to get rid of the irritating feel it gave her, though. Anne knew that it would all be over soon. Suddenly, the tentative whisperings of the crowd stopped. She heard a sword swinging through the air, and then there was nothing at all.

-

“Oh, I get it. Since the only thing we have in common is our husband, grouping us is an inherently comparative act and as such unnecessarily elevates a historical approach ingrained in patriarchal structures.”

As soon as she finished her line, the audience broke out into an impressed cheer. They were clapping for her, whistling, praising her. All for saying a line. She hadn’t even sung it.

Why were they so pleased with her?

For saying a line?

For saying a long line?

Or was it because she defied their expectations?

Because she was meant to be stupid, but she had come out with that?

That was probably it.

Anne bit her lip, knuckles whitening around her glittered microphone as she waited for her applause to die down. She should be revelling in it, rejoicing in the sound of hundreds of people clapping just for her. When they did it after her song, she did. Anne basked in the audience’s affections as soon as the last note of her song was over, even sending sneaky winks to particularly enthusiastic people in the front two rows.

And yet, right now, she wanted it to stop.

Anne was not stupid. She was not dumb. She didn’t want to be applauded for being the last one to understand a concept, and then come out with some rehearsed jarble about it. But here she was.

The sound of the clapping was uncomfortable. Overwhelming. It was mocking her. Reminding her that she was the queen that was perceived as stupid, the queen who was constantly lagging behind the other five as far as intelligence was concerned. Every bone in her body, every fibre of her being, it all ached to somehow prove them wrong, to act out against the way everyone saw her and prove to theatre, the other queens, the world that she was not stupid.

But she couldn’t.

Intelligence was dangerous. Intelligence got her killed. If she had kept her mouth shut, even acted just a little bit more ignorant than she actually was, Anne wouldn’t have been beheaded. She wouldn’t have been humiliated. She wouldn’t have been shamed. She would have been Anne Boleyn; smart, respectable, second divorcee of King Henry VIII. But instead she was Anne Boleyn; the slut, the whore, the witch.

There was no combatting that. Only protecting herself from it ever happening again. Feigning foolishness was her best bet, the one thing she needed in her past life to keep herself safe. She was not going to let it go in this life. Acting like this was all she had.

Imbecility might have been killing her, but intelligence already had killed her.

She had to choose the first option. To comply. To keep her opinions to herself, to not be too outspoken, to act completely and totally unbothered by everything around her, as if it all floated over her head. That was the only way she could survive.

Straightening up, she flashed the audience an impish grin as the applause subsided and swallowed down the heavy feelings of doubt and disarray.

“Yeah. I read.”

Everything was fine.


End file.
